Intermittent clashes
SANAA, Yemen — The UN envoy for Yemen arrived in the capital Sanaa on Saturday for talks to shore up a cease-fire in the country’s lifeline port city of Hodeida.
Martin Griffiths is scheduled to hold talks in Sanaa with Huthi rebel leaders before visiting Saudi capital Riyadh to meet Yemeni government officials.
It was Griffiths’ second visit to Sanaa in a month as the UN has been pushing for peace process in Yemen to end nearly four years of devastating war, which has pushed the Arab nation of more than 20 million people to the brink of famine.
While in Sanaa Griffiths will also meet retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, who has been appointed by the UN to head a truce monitoring team.
Huthi sources said Griffiths would visit Hodeida on Sunday. The Red Sea port is the entry point for the majority of imports to Yemen, where more than 22 million people now depend on humanitarian aid to survive.
Griffiths made no remarks on arrival, but he met five children with chronic diseases who were waiting in ambulances to call for the lifting of the years-old blockade at the Sanaa airport.
Huthi rebels say the airport blockade has prevented thousands of Yemeni patients from traveling abroad for treatment.
Hundreds of Huthi supporters staged a street protest in Hodeida on Friday to urge the United Nations to implement the truce accord.
“I’m Sick and I Need to Travel Abroad for Treatment,” read a banner raised by a group of sick children diagnosed with cancer and leukemia who were gathering at the Sanaa international airport.
“Yemen’s Children are Suffering … Lift the Blockade on Sanaa International Airport,” read another banner.
Griffiths, who played a key role in mediating the December deal, will push the warring sides to implement the agreement, officials said.
Under the deal, both the handover of Hodeida port and the redeployment of troops should have been completed within 14 days of the truce taking effect on Dec 18.
That deadline has already lapsed, but a member of the government’s truce monitoring team said there is no agreement yet on who should be responsible for the port, according to a report from Agence France-Presse.
Griffiths’ visit comes as the cease-fire in Hodeida is generally holding, although there have been intermittent clashes, with each side blaming the other.
Earlier in the day, heavy clashes erupted between Yemeni government troops and Houthi rebels near Hodeidah University and Rabasah quarter at the southern edge of the port city. Heavy machine guns and artillery shelling were heard across the city in the hourslong fighting, a local resident Mohammed al-Zabidy said.
Yemen’s government has written to the UN Security Council, accusing rebels of failing to comply with the cease-fire.
The rebels have accused the Saudi-led coalition of carrying out low-altitude flights over the city.
The United Nations is hoping to bring the warring sides together later this month, possibly in Kuwait, to follow up on progress made at December’s talks in Stockholm, diplomats have said.
The UN Security Council is expected to hear a report from Griffiths next week, although no date has been set.
Patrick Cammaert, appointed by the UN as head of the Redeployment Coordination Committee , which includes representatives from both Yemeni rival forces, would arrange the redeployment plans and mechanism required to monitor the cease-fire and ensure that “credible redeployment is achieved”.
Cammaert arrived in Hodeidah last week to oversee the implementation of the cease-fire between the Yemeni parties.
Saudi Arabia has been leading an Arab military coalition in Yemen against the Iran-backed Houthi militia since March 2015, in order to reinstate the exiled Yemeni government of Hadi.